Xala (11 page)

As soon as the film started El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye settled back comfortably in his seat. The film did not interest him. His thoughts were elsewhere. He wished the evening could last indefinitely.

After the cinema Oumi N‘Doye wanted to go dancing. It was such a long time since they had been to a night-club, she said. They went to ‘their' club, the one they had frequented when his second enjoyed his favour, where El Hadji had ‘his bottle' of whisky kept for him. The couples moved like shadows in the semi-darkness, keeping time to the rhythm of the Afro-American ‘soul' music. Oumi N'Doye was happy and did not miss a single dance. She flaunted her femininity, hungry for the men's attention.

They returned home late, a little tipsy.

El Hadji thought she was tired out and would leave him in peace. He had his bath and got into bed first, turning out the light. Alone in the dark he would forget his
xala
and sleep.

When did she join him in bed? He was sound asleep when she woke him with her hand running over his body, caressing him greedily. He did not respond.

‘What's the matter with you?'

El Hadji did not reply, ashamed in his dignity as a man. The woman's rapid, warm breath swept his face.

‘Tell me what's the matter with you,' she whispered, holding the man's flabby penis.

‘I'm not in form.'

‘And yesterday?' she said fiercely. ‘I'm not made of wood, as the French say. I warn you, I can go elsewhere.'

Threat? Blackmail? El Hadji knew that his second wife never ‘missed' two nights in a row, that she was passionate and sexually insatiable. She dropped the man's limp penis and raged about her rights as a wife according to the laws of polygamy.

 

 

The next day. Thursday.

They were all together round the table, having breakfast. The children, who rarely saw their father, were making the most of it. The eldest, Mactar, returned to the subject of the car, backed by his mother. Oumi N‘Doye rubbed in her son's demands with irritating remarks. ‘There should be equality between the families and the children. Why don't we also have a car? Are my children illegitimate? Bastards?' Mariem, the younger, emboldened by what she heard, talked about clothes, claiming she went naked to school, that the mini-bus had torn her dresses.

(It is worth knowing something about the life led by urban polygamists. It could be called geographical polygamy, as opposed to rural polygamy, where all the wives and children live together in the same compound. In the town, since the families are scattered, the children have little contact with their father. Because of his way of life the father must go from house to house, villa to villa, and is only there in the evenings, at bedtime. He is therefore primarily a source of finance, when he has work. The mother has to look after the children's education, so academic achievement is often very poor.)

They all wanted something. Assailed on all sides, El Hadji made promises. To have some peace he gave them money for the cinema.

The maid came to tell him Modu was waiting.

Oumi N‘Doye tried to catch her husband's eye. They were both
absorbed in their separate obsessions. Oumi N'Doye's face showed her resentment. She folded her arms and watched her husband.

‘Have a good day,' said El Hadji, looking up. His eyes met his wife's.

El Hadji was suddenly overcome with remorse and wanted to explain everything to her. As they went to the door he hoped she would say something; a joke or even a complaint. He would have responded and carried her off to the bedroom. In a tired, humble voice he would have told her:

‘Oumi, I am impotent. Please, if you are the cause, release me. I'll buy you a car. I'll divorce N'Gone, if that is what you want. I beg you in the name of Yalla, release me!'

On the threshold he turned round and looked at her. Oumi said nothing, in insolent defiance. She stuck out her chin arrogantly and the whites of her eyes shone with an oily gleam.

Regretfully El Hadji decided he must go.

Modu observed his employer's troubles with compassion. He was afraid of offending him by being the first to refer to the
xala
. During the journey, his heart beating fast, he sang the praises of a marabout who lived near his home. He could vouch for him and for his ability.

Three days later.

The baobabs, with their squat trunks and their thick, leafless branches; the slender palms, straight and elegant, topped with their broad leaves; the parasol trees, spreading their dry-season foliage, a haven for animals, shepherds and farmers, and a resting-place for birds; the yellow, dry grass, broken at its roots; stumps of millet and maize stalks, indicating the boundaries of the ancient
lougans
; ghostlike trees, burnt by repeated bush fires. Beneath the torrid heat of the sun nature was covered with a thin layer of greyish dust, streaked by the rough tongue of the wind. The landscape was marked by a grandiose, calm austerity and harmony.

Modu was driving. He did not slow down at bends, or hardly at all. The Mercedes was travelling at top speed, the tyres shrieked at all the corners.

The scenery was changing all the time. The greyish terrain was
scattered with ant-heaps of different shapes which, in the early morning and at dusk, worked on the imaginations and simple minds of the local people. Aggressive, stunted trees, bristling with thorns, marked the boundaries of the fields. The paths met, separated and ran parallel to each other towards the villages and the wells. The majestic silk-cotton trees, with their crazy roots running along the ground, formed a succession of enclosures.

The car turned off the tarred road and onto a dirt track. El Hadji wound up the windows. The winding track ran between a double hedge of
ngeer
trees. At the end of it they came to a small village. It was midday. People were asleep under a silk-cotton tree. Hearing the sound of the engine some looked up, wondering. The more daring approached it. The children admired and commented.

Modu spoke to an elderly peasant with a pock-marked face and wearing a simple caftan. The peasant flung his arms about in all directions as he spoke, as if he couldn't find his hands. Another peasant, a very tall man with a worn face, joined them. Modu returned to the car and spoke to El Hadji.

‘Sereen Mada has gone to live in another village. To reach it we shall have to hire a cart.'

‘What for?' asked El Hadji, who had remained in the car.

‘The village is in the middle of the plain. A car couldn't get to it.'

‘All right,' agreed El Hadji, climbing out of the Mercedes and looking around him. He exchanged greetings with the villagers. He was subjected to a minute inspection. ‘It is someone important,' he heard them saying. He was invited to take a seat on the tree-trunk that served as a work-bench.

The man with the pock-marked face came back with a cart. The horse was extremely thin and had a brown coat covered with sores that had been smeared with blue. The driver invited the ‘boss' to sit next to him. Modu sat behind, with his back to the direction in which they were going. After a while the driver began chatting to Modu. They found they had mutual acquaintances. The peasant hated the town because of all the machines. ‘It is a rhythm of madness,' he said. Sereen Mada was the local celebrity. A man of knowledge. He only worked for ‘bosses'. In fact one of them had tried to get him to go to the town with him, to keep him there for his personal use. ‘Can you imagine such selfishness?'

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye had shooting pains in his head. He was wet through with perspiration. The midday sun poured its heat onto him. He had to keep wiping his face with his fine linen handkerchief. The waves of heat rose in a misty vapour to the empty sky, torturing his eyes that were unaccustomed to it.

The horse went at a snail's pace, encouraged by the driver who at every step it took announced:

‘We haven't much further to go.'

Then, as they emerged from a ravine, they saw conical thatched roofs, grey-black with weathering, standing out against the horizon in the middle of the empty plain. Free-ranging, skinny cattle with dangerous-looking horns fenced with one another to get at what little grass there was. No more than silhouettes in the distance, a few people were busy around the only well.

The driver of the cart was in familiar territory and greeted people as they passed. Sereen Mada's house, apart from its imposing size, was identical in construction with all the others. It was situated in the centre of the village whose huts were arranged in a semi-circle, which you entered by a single main entrance. The village had neither shop nor school nor dispensary; there was nothing at all attractive about it in fact. Its life was based on the principles of community interdependence.

They were received with the customary courtesy of this society, all the more so as his European dress meant that El Hadji was a stranger and a man of wealth. They were led into a hut which was unfurnished except for spotlessly clean mats laid on the ground. A second door opened onto another yard which was enclosed by a fence made of millet stalks. Beyond, a newly thatched, rectangular-shaped roof blocked the view. El Hadji was impatient to know what was happening. He felt disagreeably like an outsider.

A neatly dressed young woman with shining white teeth brought them water to quench their thirst. She kneeled in front of them before setting down the calabash and addressing them. The water was clear and on the surface floated small
seep
roots. When the young woman left them Modu held the calabash up to El Hadji.

‘This is good, pure water.'

‘I am not thirsty,' replied El Hadji, who was seated on one of the mats.

Deferentially Modu drank deeply and leaned back against the wall. He was soon asleep and snoring. This unseemly noise irritated El Hadji. He turned to look out into the distance but was unable to escape the sound. The last part of the journey had made him very tired. He unlaced his shoes and pulled them off. He undid his tie, glancing as he did so at his chauffeur. Leaning against the centre-pole, he reflected. He had little faith in all these charlatans. They were only after his money. He had lost count of how much he had spent. The only one in whom he had any faith at all was the
seet-katt
. When Modu had spoken to him about Sereen Mada he had been unconvinced. But his employee's arguments had sounded credible, and he had allowed himself to be led here, to this tiny room. Now all Modu could do was go off to sleep.

Soon he too fell asleep.

The muezzin had called the faithful to the
Takkusan
and
Timis
prayers, and the
Geewe
prayer was also over. The shadows grew darker. Objects became indistinct. One by one the stars began to take up their positions in the sky above. There was complete darkness when El Hadji woke with a start.

‘Modu! Modu!' he called urgently. ‘Have you any matches?' He heard a rustling of clothes. Modu felt about his person and finally produced a tiny, pointed flame. It grew smaller; spread out at the base, then obstinately leapt' into life again, climbing, moving, dancing to a point with a bluish crown.

El Hadji looked at his watch.

‘We have slept a long time, boss.'

The room went dark again.

‘We need a light,' grumbled El Hadji, who had found his shoes.

‘
Assalamaleku
! You are awake?' asked a woman's voice coming from the first door.

She was holding a storm-lamp in one hand. All they could see was the fork of her legs escaping from under her cloth. The top of her body merged with the darkness. She placed the lamp next to the entrance, beside the calabash of water. She went on: ‘We did not want to wake you. There is water in the enclosure for you to wash, if you wish. I have brought you something to eat. Please excuse our cooking.'

A little girl, who had been waiting behind her, placed a wooden
bowl covered with a winnowing fan on the ground. They withdrew, leaving the lamp.

‘We are not going to spend the night here,' said El Hadji.

‘Boss, you must be patient. Sereen Mada knows we are here.'

El Hadji regretted having spoken as he had done and lied:

‘I have things to do in Dakar.'

Swarms of fireflies were flitting around the glass of the lamp.

Modu went out to the toilet.

Left alone El Hadji felt crushed by the silence. Modu returned and placed the wooden bowl between them. He lifted the fan: it was a mutton couscous. El Hadji declined to eat any of it.

‘I'm not hungry. But if I'd foreseen this situation I'd have come prepared.'

‘You haven't had anything to eat all day, boss. Drink some water at least. I assure you it is quite safe.'

El Hadji was very thirsty. The ice-hamper with his bottles of mineral water had been left behind in the Mercedes. Modu, a child of the earth, ate with appetite. The couscous had been very well prepared and the grains did not stick together.